Fuit and Erat

[Cespinarve]

I am having some confusion while teaching myself Latin, in regards to a definition in the textbook. The exercise was to translate into latin and was as follows (learning imperfect and perfect).


3. he was (and maybe still is)

4. he was (and isn't anymore)

Now, my understanding was that imperfect tense was something that was in the act of happening in the past, but does not carry through to the present. Except that since the answers were

3. erat

4. fuit

Have I misunderstood imperfect tense? I thought imperfect would be "he had been [verb]" with the assumption that he wasn't still [verbing] now- but am I confusing it with pluperfect? Argh, my head...

 

[Nikolaos]

Have I misunderstood imperfect tense? I thought imperfect would be "he had been [verb]" with the assumption that he wasn't still [verbing] now- but am I confusing it with pluperfect? Argh, my head...

Yes, that is the pluperfect.

It might help to replace the word "perfect" with its synonym, "complete". A perfected action is a completed action, and an imperfected action is uncompleted at the time described.

When translating short, simple sentences, "eram" and "fui" can often be both translated as "I was", and sometimes even in connected discourse they are interchangeable.

Anyway, let me give some examples...

Laboravi - "I worked"
Laboravi duas horas - "I have worked for two hours"

The above examples are both of the perfect tense. The second one doesn't necessarily imply that I am no longer working, but may simply mean that I have completed two hours of work and am still working.* To make this less confusing, think of the two hours as perfected - I'm not talking about what happened during the time that I worked, I'm just saying that I did.

*Forumers: If I am wrong on this, please explain. However, I believe that I saw this construction in Adler and will try to find it (or something similar) if asked.

Laborabam - "I was working, I used to work, I tried to work"
Cum eum vidi, laborabat - "When I saw him, he was working"

These two are both imperfect. The second example refers to a previous time ("when I saw him"), but it doesn't say that "he" can't still be working even now - I only said what I saw at that time, and don't know whether he is or is not working any more.

 

[Cespinarve]

And ergo "he had worked" would be the pluperfect.

My issue with imperfect/perfect lies in that when you look at a table for continual and completed aspects, present and perfect occupy the same region, as being in between the past and the future:

pluperfect | perfect | future perfect
imperfect | present | future

the issue being in that perfect is completed, and therefore not really happening in the now, per se, but in the near past, such as a second ago, or millisecond, as opposed to pluperfect which happens in a larger sense of the past "Yesterday", "Six hours ago", "In 150 AD" and so on.

So "The machine starts" is present tense. "The machine started up [before turning off yesterday]" is... pluperfect? And "The machine started [when I got there]" would be imperfect. "The machine started and stopped" would be perfect? (Completed in the nowish frame of time?)

 

[Nikolaos]

And ergo "he had worked" would be the pluperfect.

Yep.

My issue with imperfect/perfect lies in that when you look at a table for continual and completed aspects, present and perfect occupy the same region, as being in between the past and the future:

pluperfect | perfect | future perfect
imperfect | present | future

The fact that it occupies the same column doesn't mean anything really, except that both tenses have one tense before and one after in the same aspect according to the sequence of tenses.

the issue being in that perfect is completed, and therefore not really happening in the now, per se, but in the near past, such as a second ago, or millisecond, as opposed to pluperfect which happens in a larger sense of the past "Yesterday", "Six hours ago", "In 150 AD" and so on.

No, the past, pluperfect and imperfect tenses can all occupy the same range of times - the use depends on context. The pluperfect always (I think) relies on another verb to define the time in the past that an action was completed by, which can range from the very instant before speaking to the beginning of time as we know it. The imperfect relies either on a verb or an understanding of the time during which something is done.

So "The machine starts" is present tense.

Yes

"The machine started up [before turning off yesterday]" is... pluperfect?

And yes again.

And "The machine started [when I got there]" would be imperfect.

This can be either perfect or imperfect, I believe. With the imperfect, it is "the machine was starting when I got there".

"The machine started and stopped" would be perfect? (Completed in the nowish frame of time?)

Yes, and it would still be perfect if it happened in 42 BC.

 

[Imber Ranae]

I suppose "he was (and maybe still is)" is meant to be fuit, and "he was (and isn't any more)" is meant to be erat. Neither tense actually suggests anything about the present time, however, absent some context, so these descriptions are rather misleading.

 

[Decimvs]

I tend to think of the perfect as meaning "was but is no longer" and the imperfect to mean "was (and is possibly still)."

Book II of the Aeneid is called to mind, when Virgil uses the perfect to say "Troy was, we were Trojans (implying that these things obviously are no longer true)." Fuimus Troes, Fuit Ilium.

Also, many things like hic currus fuit; in this place was her chariot (implying that it is no longer in fact there), urbs antiqua fuit, et cetera.

 

[Bitmap]

needless response

it's not like a phrase like "Troes eramus" would

I tend to think of the perfect as meaning "was but is no longer" and the imperfect to mean "was (and is possibly still)."

Neither tense actually suggests anything about the present time